Blood at Bay. Sue Rabie
“Why?”
“To give to you?” David suggested. “When he came to look for you in the toilets?”
“He didn’t give me anything,” she told him. “Not that I can remember, anyway. I was so upset at the time, I left him and Ms Prinsloo to pack everything away and went home. I never saw him again.”
They fell silent, the finality of her words affecting both of them. It was a while before she spoke again. “What about a funeral?” she asked. “Who’s going to arrange everything?”
David hesitated. “There won’t be a funeral. At least not until the police release Peter’s body.”
Kathy stared at him. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t they release his body?”
She didn’t know. She hadn’t realised. “There might be foul play involved,” David said carefully. “The fire might not have been an accident.”
“What?” she whispered. “You mean Peter may have been murdered? I don’t believe it. Why would someone do that?”
“For that piece of paper,” David explained.
“Oh God,” she whispered. “Peter’s parents. How awful for them.”
David took her hand over the table, just to comfort her. She held his hand tightly, fresh tears coming to her eyes. She squeezed his hand once and then let go. “Do you mind? Can I stay? Tonight? I don’t think I can face the trip back.”
He was grateful she had let his hand go because his palms had suddenly become very clammy. “Of course,” he said. “Stay as long as you like.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
David changed the sheets on his bed for Kathy, gave her one of his T-shirts and a clean towel, and then made up the bed in the spare room for himself.
Stowaway spent the night with Kathy. On the bed. On his pillow. So David lay there in the spare room, thinking about her, about the woman sleeping in his bed next door. That morning, before he had met Kathy, he had been wallowing in loneliness, obsessing about his nightmares. He hadn’t thought about his nightmares all evening. He thought about Kathy, about Peter, about the faceless man falling in the shredders at the sugar mill, about the man killed in the car crash. He thought about Peter’s parents, how they would be struggling to sleep as well. In the end, he did eventually nod off …
… and promptly woke with a cold nose on his chin and the sun shining through the curtains. The cat was perched on his chest, its paws tucked underneath it and its bright green eyes staring at him as he awakened.
“Damn thing,” he groaned, pushing it away.
The cat was unperturbed by his apparent disinterest and climbed back onto his lap as he tried to sit up. It meowed, demanding attention.
“All right,” he groaned. “I’m getting there.”
He picked it up, flipped the bed covers back and got out of bed; then he carried it out to the kitchen for breakfast. But Stowaway had already been fed. A saucer of fresh milk was placed next to a cup as a water bowl, and last night’s dinner plates were washed up and drying in the sink.
There was a note on the kitchen counter, along with a phone number:
Thanks for last night.
Phone me when you get up?
Kathy.
David phoned straight away.
“You looked exhausted when I came in to wake you,” she explained after he had asked her how she was. “So I let you sleep.”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m going to work, to help with … Peter’s things.”
“Oh,” he replied. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“I want to. I’ll feel better doing something constructive for his parents, at least. There were some photos of them on his desk, and some personal items I know the police won’t want but will make all the difference to them.”
David understood. “All right,” he said. “But phone me if you need anything.”
“I will,” she replied. “And David?” she added.
“Yes?”
“Thanks for being there last night, and for being such a gentleman.”
He told her it wasn’t a problem at all, and she hung up. David closed his phone and peered down at Stowaway who was sitting at the front door watching him expectantly. “So,” he asked the cat, “what now?”
He didn’t have a delivery any more; the second consignment of machinery parts had been postponed by Ms Prinsloo until further notice. His next delivery was only later next week.
“Well, there’s only one other job left to do,” he told the cat. “And someone has to do it.”
Clean the heads.
He dressed in an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt, grabbed his jacket and the kitten and packed her and her cat litter into his Land Rover. He drove to a supermarket to buy cat food and a set of eating and drinking bowls for her. He also bought some cleaning equipment: toilet brushes, disinfectants and black bags. He added bottled water and sandwiches for his own lunch.
The trip down to the yacht club was negotiated with Stowaway on his shoulder trying to get out of the Land Rover’s window, the section from the car to the yacht with Stowaway clawing at his chest while he juggled with the security disc. The guard at the gate saw his dilemma and let him in with a grin.
It was a bit of a mission getting Stowaway back onto Sea Scout. The cat was acutely aware of the water on either side of her and meowed agonisingly as David clambered up the boarding steps and into Sea Scout’s wheelhouse. He struggled frantically with the lock to the aft companionway and managed to get it open just before the cat started shredding the front of his shirt. David let her go and she fled straight down into the saloon.
He sat at the cockpit for a good minute, trying to recover his composure before he went below. He noticed the boat had been realigned at her moorings, her new fenders keeping her well away from the jetty. Baumann had kept his promise to sort out the moorings. But that was all. The saloon and cabins were still in a mess; the galley was still clogged with dirty dishes. Oh well, David thought, he had promised Julian he would take care of it.
He left the cat wherever she had gone to ground and returned to the car to collect the box with the food and cleaning equipment. When he got back Stowaway was sitting on the cluttered saloon table batting at a half-dead cockroach.
“Well done,” he praised her. “Now, go get another.” She ignored him and started cleaning her paws.
Where should he begin? He started by opening every port light, and hatch he could find; then he took a plastic bag and picked up beer bottles, broken glasses, food wrappings and any other disposables. Another bag dealt with the litter in the saloon. Next came the unbroken dishes and glasses, Stowaway following him with avid interest. He stacked the still intact cutlery and crockery in a box and collected all the abandoned clothes, old bedding and mildewed beach towels. They would go to a Laundromat, then to the Salvation Army. Any boating equipment he stowed in the poop cabin – ropes, harnesses and life jackets – leaving them for another day.
It was hot inside the boat and he took off his shirt as he worked. Stowaway claimed his jacket, which he had left on a seat in the saloon, as a bed for her mid-morning nap.
“Cheeky thing,” he reprimanded her.
The next job was wiping down all the surfaces – the saloon table first, then the galley. Finally, there were the heads. He was just about to pull on some gloves and start with the toilet when his cellphone rang. He scratched around in the cleaning equipment to locate it.
“Hello?”